Today, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, is Good Shepherd Sunday! As we hear in our Communion Antiphon, “The Good Shepherd has risen, who laid down his life for his sheep and willingly died for this flock, alleluia” (Roman Missal, Fourth Sunday of Easter). Given that since the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council we have been blessed with a three-year cycle in the Sunday Lectionary for Mass there are not that many Sundays in the liturgical year which are thematically related in every year. There are some, such as the First and Second Sundays of Lent and Palm Sunday, whereon we hear each of the synoptic accounts (the accounts from Matthew, Mark, and Luke) of the same event in each of the lectionary years (A, B. and C, respectively). There are even a very few Sundays whereon we hear precisely the same Gospel, such as Jesus’ appearance to Thomas (John 20:19-31) as we heard on the Second Sunday of Easter. But on this Fourth Sunday of Easter every year we have the unique experience of hearing a different segment of Jesus’ Parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10). Good Shepherd Sunday each year presents one segment of John 10. This year, as we are in Year B, we are given “the second moment” (John 10:11-18) to ponder. This leads us to trust the path of the Good Shepherd, as we hear in our Collect (or Opening Prayer), that “the humble flock may reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.”
When I was ministering with our youngest catechumens I was blessed to be trained and certified in the first two levels of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori inspired method to form children ages 3-6, 6-9, and 9-12 in our Catholic Christian faith. This “method of signs,” as it is known, uses the primary symbols, gestures, and words of our Biblical-Liturgical tradition and helped me to synthesize and distill down to the essentials how the Church hands on the mysteries entrusted to her to foster an encounter with Jesus Christ. In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, following the Lectionary, we present to children today’s Parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10) in three moments. In the first moment we recognize that Jesus is the Good Shepherd whose voice we attend to. How can you listen more attentively to the voice of the Lord in your life? In the second moment we recognize that the Good Shepherd lays down his life to protect the sheep from harm and offer them safe pasture. How can you thank Jesus for laying down his life to save you? And, finally, in the third moment we help children recognize that this same Good Shepherd gives himself to us and remains with us to feed us in the Liturgy of the Eucharist. How can your participation in the Mass lead you to offer your whole life as fitting worship to glorify God? As we hear at the end of Mass today, let us pray that God will “Look upon your flock, kind Shepherd, and be pleased to settle in eternal pastures the sheep you have redeemed by the Precious Blood of your Son” (Prayer after Communion).
In your home this week you might place a statue of the Good Shepherd on your prayer table (such as this one found in the Vatican Museum) or this image which we use in the Atrium (the prepared space for the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd). LTP also publishes CGS resources including a great book The Good Shepherd and the Child: A Joyful Journey (revised and updated 2013) which a former colleague at St. Michael Parish, Olympia used for a fruitful adult/parent book study. I encourage you to look into training in this same method, the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, for your own growth and to be of service to the children in your life and our parish community. Kim Ward, who is on pastoral staff at our new partnered parish of St. Patrick, Tacoma, coordinates our entire region’s Sheepfold, a network for formation of adults in this Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. See https://tinyurl.com/3ppctk3m for more information.
This Fourth Sunday of Easter is often also the date on which First Holy Communion is given to children or on which we celebrate the Rite of Reception/Admission into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church for those who were baptized and raised in other Christian traditions. It is clearly a fitting time to reflect on Jesus’ gift of himself to us in Holy Communion, a gift for which he prepared his disciples in John 6 as we heard each day of this past week (and about which I wrote last week). Here at St. John Vianney our children who have been preparing for their First Holy Communion will partake of the Body and Blood of Christ at Mass on Sunday, May 5. A big thanks to Erin and Ryan Simmons for their continuation of the ministry of forming these children of God.
Our Sunday and weekday First Readings at Mass throughout this Fourth Week of Easter keep us in our study of Acts 11 and 13 which I have also been studying with my freshmen at O’Dea High School. Again, be sure to check out those episodes of The Bible Project on the Acs of the Apostles and, for our younger readers, check out Diary of a Disciple: Peter and Paul’s Story which I mentioned I the Easter Sunday installment.
We have been slim in our sanctoral (memorials of saints) these past few weeks, although our youth did make various dishes to represent saints for their youth group on Wednesday. During this week ahead we have several holy men and women to remember. If April 21 was not a Sunday, it would be the memorial of St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109), a Doctor of the Church most well known for his Proslogion (Discourse) from which we have the famous dictum of theology, Fides Quaerens Intellectum (Faith Seeking Understanding). While one can investigate divine things by reason, St. Anselm argues one necessarily begins theological inquiry from the position of having faith rather than say, investigating in order to convince oneself to have faith. Faith is, as we read in the Catechism, always a gift of God and a free response of the will (see CCC 153-161).
On Tuesday, April 23, we keep the memorial of St. George. St. George was a Roman soldier who was martyred by decapitation in 303 under the orders of Emperor Diocletian for the crime of being a Christian. While little is known of his life the later Golden Legend (from the 13th century) tells the famous story of St. George lancing the dragon which we find all over Christendom from England to Ukraine to Ethiopia—all of which claim St. George as a patron. It might be fun today to smash a dragon piñata or play lance the dragon, to celebrate something of the chivalrous willingness to lay down one’s life in defense of the good and pure. In early monastic spirituality, following Evagrius, the true dragon every Christian must slay is his or her own anger or wrath. Tolkien makes the dragon Smaug an emblem of ravenous covetousness.
On Thursday, April 25, we celebrate the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist. Although there is ongoing scholarly debate about the identity of the Gospel writer there is scholarly consensus that the Gospel of Mark is the earliest of the accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Mark is said to have brought the Gospel to Alexandria, the cultural and financial heart of the classical Mediterranean region. To this day the Coptic (Egyptian) Church regards St. Mark as their founder as we in the west regard St. Peter as our Father, Papa. Given that we are currently hearing largely from this earliest and shortest of the Gospels every Sunday since we in Year B in our Sunday Lectionary, it would be especially timely to sit down and read the whole Gospel. Mark’s account contains a number of peculiarities especially his so called Messianic secret. In Christian iconography St. Mark is associated with the winged Lion of the apocalyptic visions (Ezekiel 1 and Revelation 4) and so we see not only Alexandria in Egypt but also later the city of Venice associated with Lions (since the latter stole the relics of St. Mark from Alexandria). You can find some beautiful coloring pages depicting the four evangelists and St. Mark as the Lion which our youngest parishioners might enjoy.
Lastly, April 28 is the memorial of St. Peter Chanel (1803-1841). Although in most places this would be superseded by the Fifth Sunday of Easter, at our partnered parish of Holy Cross in Tacoma there is a special shrine to St. Peter Chanel established by the Samoan Catholic community there in honor of St. Peter Chanel’s mission to and martyrdom as the first Martyr of Oceania at Futuna. On Sunday, April 28, Archbishop Etienne will be celebrating Mass with the Samoan community and having a Samoan feast following. Here at St. John Vianney we will be hosting Brendan McCauley for a talk on the Theology of the Body at 3:00 in the afternoon which I hope you will plan to attend!
iCasad 
